The company is keen to make sure children get their five a day – making pizza bases from carrots and courgettes and chocolate cake from beetroot and cocoa.

Another priority over the next five years is to get all school meals cooked on site – bringing an end to meals having to be transported into schools.

But it faces a challenge to increase sales - fewer primary pupils eat school meals in Sheffield compared with the rest of South Yorkshire.

Latest figures showed only 38 per cent of pupils eat school lunches in the city compared with 58 per cent in Doncaster and 50 per cent in Barnsley.

Andrew Truby, headteacher at St Thomas of Canterbury School at Meadowhead, said: “The children are already remarking this week what a difference the food is this term. How much more choice there is and just how tasty it all is.

“We chose Taylor Shaw as our preferred bidder - the reason we liked the company so much was the fact it was willing to work in consultation with parents and children as well as the school on individually targeted menus.”

Council school meals manager Leah Barratt said meals had to be of a certain standard to meet Government guidelines on nutrition.

“Hungry children don’t learn and packed lunches rarely come up to the same nutritional standard as a school meal so when the convenience factor is put into the mix, school meals make sense,” she added.